The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has proposed a total investment of US$320 million in three Vietnamese banks, reported the Nikkei Asia.

The banks are the Saigon-Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB), Vietnam International Commercial Joint Stock Bank (VIB), and Oriental Commercial Joint Stock Bank (OCB).

IFC has proposed investing $120 million as a three-year senior, dollar-denominated loan in SHB to support the growth of SHB's SMEs loan portfolio, including women-owned small- and medium-sized enterprises and those participating in supply chain finance.

The international lender is also weighing an investment of $100 million each in VIB and OCB to support the growth of housing portfolios, including affordable housing.

Established in 1993, SHB is a commercial bank operating in Viet Nam with total assets of $22.5 billion as of June 30.

Headquartered in HCM City, VIB is a full-service commercial bank with 177 branches and transaction offices in 27 cities across Viet Nam. Meanwhile, OCB had total assets of $8.1 billion as of September 30.

Most recently, IFC proposed extending a senior loan of up to $100 million to Hanoi-based Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank. The proposed loan, which has a tenor of up to five years and will come from IFC's own account, will be exclusively used to support the bank's housing portfolio. — VNS